Night
by astheblackrosewilts
Summary: The days were for him but the nights were a different story. John!Centric


Disclaimer – Don't own, don't sue

Summary – The days were for him, the nights though were a different story.

**Night **

Very few people knew what had happened to John Sheppard after Afghanistan.

Then the daytime had always been for him

Daytime was the time when he'd snapped salutes sharply where other men tried to avoid them, resentful.

Daytime was the time when he'd blocked himself off as completely as possible from them, all of those who stared at him with anger, grief and even, in some cases, hatred.

He didn't blame them, he'd heard the stories. If he was them he might have hated himself too.

The government hadn't had a choice really; there were too many parents with too high a status asking too many questions. This was one mistake they'd decided they weren't going to be able to cover up and if they didn't have a cover-up they needed a scapegoat.

After all, they couldn't have had the good American people losing faith in their state and government, can they?

He'd been the last survivor, so there wasn't really another choice, even they recognised the dangers of placing the blame for the accident and the deaths of so many men on the shoulders of the son of one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So it fell upon him, he wasn't even out of the hospital before he'd been informed that he'd be travelling to a military prison immediately.

At least that was what they'd said they'd done, as far as he was concerned, he'd woken up in a small, dank little cell with no explanation.

Even then he hadn't questioned it, perhaps he did have some vestige of the memory still contained in his subconscious, or perhaps he'd just known.

One thing he'd understood though, even then, was that he was going to be staying there for a long time.

He had been right. It had been three years before they even let him out of solitary.

After that during the day he worked in the mess hall, built furniture, did as he was told. During the day he was a model prisoner. One he knew they would have been proud of.

If they didn't know what he'd done.

But despite this he'd been given a second chance, they'd said that they had reevaluated his case and had decided he had a lot to contribute.

John had known it was crap but he wasn't going to argue.

Even if it was just because he made excellent cannon fodder for the latest war his country was planning he was still breathing fresh air for the first time in five years and they'd stationed him at one of the most beautiful places in the world.

He suspected the Antarctica placement had less to do with the picturesque landscape and more to do with the fact that he was less than likely to be spotted working as a taxi driver at McMurdo to dozens of ridiculously intelligent scientists who had little to no time for the young man who took them to where they were going to do whatever it was they were doing and then back to civilisation when their shift was up.

Then everything had changed.

He'd sat in a chair.

And now he was about as far away from irate parents and prison and Afghanistan and black marks and records and everything as it was possible to be.

But people still stare at him, but now people are staring at him in desperation, hope and a kind of reverence he had always previously associated with deities.

Now John's days are his own again.

Now during the day he files paperwork and writes letters he's becoming increasingly sure will never be delivered to the families of dead personnel.

Now he flies 'jumpers, goes through the gate, searches for Alpha sites , gets captured by natives and fights the wraith.

Now he indulges himself occasionally, his own guilty secret being slightly unorthodox, going to the labs to work out maths problems for Rodney and Radek before they even know they're going to need them.

Now he teaches people with no place in a war to begin with how to fight, fire a gun, kill…

Occasionally he manages to drag his team together from things that as the wraith get closer are increasing in importance for a team night where they watch a movie, have not-popcorn and laugh…

Not everything is different though

Because even though the days belong to him after day always comes night, and that was the part he dreaded.

Because night was the time when They got through his defences and chipped away at the little bit that was left of his soul

Sometimes he wondered if those who had been calling for his death had had a point. It had been the parents of those in his squadron mostly, those who had lost the most. What was it they called death? The eternal sleep?

The one place he couldn't escape.

Faces ripped to shreds.

Screaming at him.

Begging him to save them

Blaming him for failing.

Parading every single soldier he'd ever let die in front of his eyes, one after the other, night after night, _every_ night.

Broken, bruised and bloodied men.

_His_ broken, bruised and bloodied men.

There were so many.

The daytime was for him, that was where they couldn't get him, where he was safe.

The night though…

That belonged to them.

**Fin **


End file.
